There
are two schools of thought on effects, one at either end of a broad
spectrum. One school holds that effects should only be used to
further the concept of the video. The other school holds that effects
should be used just because they look cool. I’m going to refer
to these as the meaningful camp and the appearance camp. Most people,
it should be noted, are somewhere in between, using effects to
further their musical sync and concepts as they feel it appropriate.

MEANING

The first school of thought adopts an artistic
approach to special effects, seeking to heighten the emotions
projected by onto the viewer or otherwise strengthen the impact of
the video. When done well, this can be extremely effective. When done
poorly, this can lead to heavy-handed or incomprehensible symbolism.
Any video which requires liner notes to be rendered comprehensible
has probably failed to communicate properly as a video.

The
second school of thought can be briefly summarized as “let's
have fun”. These are effects used for visual appeal, like color
in the Wizard of Oz. These generally have no artistic merit
other than that the editor had fun creating them and thinks they look
pretty. This can lead to stunning technical achievements, such as
compositing two hundred clips into a massive wall, or videos where
the editor got so caught up in placing lens flares that the original
concept has been lost entirely.

Most
effects are used for musical synch. When the audio doesn’t
justify a hard cut, or a hard cut won’t do, an effect is
frequently what fits the bill. Color shifts, freeze frames,
inversions, crossfades, and more are commonly used for musical synch.

Sometimes,
what the editor wants to show doesn’t exist in the source.
However, if they can find enough pieces to work with, and are willing
to invest the time, compositing is a viable option. This is where a
shot or scene is fabricated using pieces from an anime (or more than
one). Cutting out characters and other bits of scenery is common, and
the results can be extremely impressive.